kernel: RPC: garbage, exit EIO

[James Chivers]

Dear All,

I have recently deployed a Linux server running SuSE 7.2, with kernel
2.4.7-64GB-SMP, and are getting a string of entries in /var/log/messages
like -

Nov  4 20:16:49 myserver kernel: RPC: garbage, exit EIO
Nov  4 20:17:20 myserver last message repeated 251 times
Nov  4 20:18:21 myserver last message repeated 556 times
Nov  4 20:19:22 myserver last message repeated 442 times
Nov  4 20:20:23 myserver last message repeated 650 times
Nov  4 20:21:24 myserver last message repeated 598 times
Nov  4 20:22:25 myserver last message repeated 394 times
Nov  4 20:23:26 myserver last message repeated 724 times
Nov  4 20:24:27 myserver last message repeated 702 times
Nov  4 20:25:28 myserver last message repeated 380 times
Nov  4 20:25:31 myserver last message repeated 34 times

The box is configured as an nfs client, but not server.

The nfs servers to which it mounts have no /var/log/messages entries like
Nov  4 20:00:00 nfs_server: bad getargs
 - as was previously suggested on a thread many moons ago.

I'm having trouble re-producing the errors at will, just seem to be random.

I am running a continuous kernel compilation script on the box -
http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/hmeyer_memtest-sig11.html
 - and when the above errors do strike, I get (compilation) log file entry
errors like -

make: execvp: /bin/pwd: Permission denied
t@t@re/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/make.momake: /bin/sh: Command not found
 t@ [e-mail]:288: .depend: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target `/usr/src/linux-2.4.4.SuSE/include/linux/proc_fs.h',
needed by `init/main.o'.
make: *** No rule to make target `/usr/src/linux-2.4.4.SuSE/include/linux/bootmem.h',
needed by `init/main.o'.
/bin/sh: .ver: No such file or directory

Almost as if the file system gets messed up, btw - the kernel compilation
script and kernel sources are on the server's local filesystem (i.e. not
mounted on a remote server).

Is there anything that I can do to:

<1> Reproduce the error(s) found in /var/log/messages (so, at least I'll be
in a better position to find a fix for it)?
<2> Fix the issue by either reconfiguring my setup, or applying a know
fix/patch?

The server is a dual PIII 1GHz, 2GB memory on an Asus CUV4-DLS (we've
recently swapped out the memory as we did get the odd sig 11, but it seems
to be fine now).

I thank you in advance for any help or suggestions.

-- 
Kind regards,

James Chivers